Saturday morning I woke up early to go play outside. Which for me, meant meeting up with a bunch of rad ladies at Groupe Plein Air Terrebonne for the Vélo de Montagne 100% Fille event. Organised for the 3rd year by La Cordee, this event gathered somewhere close to 75 ladies, divided in two groups (morning and afternoon) and 10-12 coaches. We had the privilege to have Canadian champion U23 2018, Laurie Arseneault as one of the coaches. She’s a great rider and just overall a great down to earth person.
I took part in the morning ride, part of the beginners group and had Line and Michèle as coaches. 5 riders with 2 awesome coaches. It was great! They had so many little tips and advice to offer, it was so much fun!
We started the morning on how to ride berms. Basically where we should be looking, 15-20 ft ahead, where we want to go, and not just down at the wheel. After a few runs, I got the hang of it and enjoyed going into the turns with more confidence. Also learned that the biggest key to succesful mountain biking is your body position. Neutral and ready position. Lots of valuable information to learn all at once but so important. Already looking forward to my next ride and putting it all into action on the trail.
We learned how to bunnyhop onto logs. We then had fun in a mogul course and best part of the day for me was learning how to jump. Still need to work on my technique and add more difficulty but it was fun!
For lunch, La Cordee had a nice BBQ set up and just took care of us. They also had a little workshop on how to change your tire. We then all got spoiled by sponsors as they had a draw and there were so many goodies that all girls got something. Got to admit I got real lucky and scored a new Giro helmet. Love it!
Groupe Plein Air Terrebonne is truly the perfect setting to learn how to mountain bike or work on some new skills. They have 3 trails, a beginner, intermediate and advanced level for a total of 3km of trails. What’s great about this site, is actually all the technical stuff they have…wooden bridge’s, jumps, moguls, bridges. Perfect place to work on technical skills. It’s also free to ride as it’s a non lucrative organisation. And on Wednesday’s, they have Les Mercredis de Terrebonne which is a cross-country race for all levels with different courses which is consisted of 10 stages.
Once again THANK YOU La Cordee for putting together this awesome event just for us ladies! Thank you to the organisation and all the volunteers whom without them, there wouldn’t be an event. The amazing coaches. I hope there’ll be more fun days like this! See ya next year!
